Environment

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK - Yosemite National Park is bracing for its driest year on record, with visitor bureaus downplaying the allure of the park's most famous waterfall and instead touting the park as a destination for hiking, bicycling and photography.

The frozen fringes of western Antarctica have been melting 70 percent faster in the last decade, raising concern that an important buttress keeping land-based ice sheets from flowing to the sea could collapse or vanish in coming decades, a new study shows.

The government "rubber stamps" the license for the Miami Seaquarium despite the park keeping Lolita the killer whale in inhumane conditions, an animal rights group told a federal appeals court Tuesday.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is poised to help Shell clear a major hurdle in its effort to resume drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean, despite opposition from her hometown of Seattle, where the company’s drilling fleet would be moored at the city’s port.

Federal agriculture officials are spending nearly $60 million this year to help combat the beetles, bollworms and other bugs that have the potential to wreak havoc on American crops, with California and Florida taking the biggest share.

Vice President Joe Biden will speak next week at Netroots Nation -- a major gathering of progressive and Democratic bloggers and activists looking to strategize for upcoming political battles in 2014 and 2016. | 07/09/14 17:06:46 By - By Lesley Clark

President Barack Obama amped up his just-a-regular-guy routine with a visit to Denver Tuesday night – playing a round of pool in a bar where he was apparently offered a puff on a joint. | 07/09/14 16:18:10 By - By Lesley Clark

Many colleges and universities are failing to comply with the law and follow best practices for how to handle student sexual assaults, according to the results released Wednesday from an in-depth national survey commissioned by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. | 07/09/14 13:24:56 By - By Renee Schoof

A troubled division of Customs and Border Protection whose leader was recently ousted by the Obama administration is now accused of improperly scrutinizing the personal information of the agency’s 60,000 employees for evidence of potential misconduct and corruption. | 07/08/14 16:34:52 By - By Marisa Taylor

President Barack Obama says more reforms aimed at Wall Street are needed, arguing that as the U.S. financial sector has grown, “more and more of the revenue generated on Wall Street is based on arbitrage -- trading bets -- as opposed to investing in companies that actually make something and hire people.” | 07/03/14 13:45:57 By - By Lesley Clark

President Barack Obama frequently hammers Republicans for not supporting measures that he says would ensure equal pay for men and women, calling it an “embarrassment” that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. | 07/02/14 17:45:34 By - By Lesley Clark

President Barack Obama dined with prominent economists Wednesday, the second such lunch in less than a month as the administration seeks ways to accelerate the economic recovery. | 07/02/14 16:29:10 By - By Kevin G. Hall and Lesley Clark

A national security watchdog panel on Wednesday approved a soft-hitting report on one of the National Security Agencys data collection programs, saying it is legal and provoking critics who say the program actually sweeps up Americans data through a backdoor loophole. | 07/02/14 17:30:26 By - By Ali Watkins

The White House says President Barack Obama has no plans -- as of yet -- to tour the Texas/Mexico border when he’s in the state next week, despite an invite from Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- a 2012 Republican presidential hopeful. | 07/02/14 16:24:42 By - By Lesley Clark

General Motors outside compensation guru announced a long-awaited plan for providing financial restitution to those harmed by crashes stemming from faulty ignition switches in Chevy Cobalts and five other models, setting no ceiling on how much money will be awarded.The firms 2009 bankruptcy will not be a bar to the filing of claims for accidents that occurred before it sought Chapter 11 protection, Kenneth Feinberg told a news conference at the National Press Club. | 06/30/14 20:06:26 By - By Greg Gordon

House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday that he plans to sue President Barack Obama over what he perceives as presidential overreach of executive authority. | 06/25/14 15:57:36 By - By William Douglas

In a win for big media, the Supreme Court on Wednesday grounded the streaming service Aereo with a ruling that the startup violates the Copyright Act by recording and streaming over-the-air TV to subscribers’ devices. | 06/25/14 11:43:12 By - By Vera Bergengruen and Michael Doyle

_Sen. Thad Cochran, campaigning as the veteran voice of reason and experience, Tuesday narrowly defeated upstart challenger Chris McDaniel and the tea party movement that so passionately rallied behind him in a fiercely fought race for the Mississippi Republican Senate nomination. | 06/25/14 00:01:51 By - By David Lightman